AI Voice & Video Pricing Changes: July 2026 Digest

Direct answer

The AI voice and video pricing changes we tracked and verified for July 2026: Murf consolidated from six plans to four (top self-serve tier now Business at $66/mo annual, down from a ~$199 tier; Creator unchanged at $19/mo annual) — re-verified on Murf's live page. Google Veo cut per-second video cost sharply: the new Veo 3.1 Lite runs $0.05/sec for 720p, roughly 67% below the $0.15/sec Fast tier and about eight times cheaper than the ~$0.40/sec earlier standard. The change our scan mislabeled as a 'Sora price decrease' was actually a shutdown — OpenAI announced it was ending Sora in late March 2026 (reportedly burning ~$15M/day), so it's no longer a tool to price. On the writing side, budget tiers keep vanishing: we've separately verified Writesonic's entry jumping to $79/mo and Jasper at $69/seat with no free plan; a QuillBot plan change remains a scan lead we couldn't confirm. Directionally: generative video is getting sharply cheaper as competition intensifies and weaker players exit, while writing tools keep trimming cheap plans.

Last verified

Jul 23, 2026

How we know

Desk-verified against primary sources

Note

Includes third-party reporting — flagged in text

Sources

4 linked

Evidence used

• The Murf consolidation (6→4 plans, Creator $19/$228 and Business $66/$792 annual, a $49 Creator Plus and second Business tier removed) was re-read on murf.ai/pricing on Jul 22, 2026 — high confidence, primary source.
• Google Veo 3.1 Lite at $0.05/sec (720p), ~67% below the $0.15/sec Fast tier and down from ~$0.40/sec standard, is confirmed across multiple independent reports (Decrypt, The Deep View) dated around Apr 2026 — corrected from our scan's vague 'price decrease' to the specific figure.
• The 'Sora price decrease' our scan flagged was wrong: OpenAI announced it was shutting down Sora in late March 2026 (article-dated Apr 1; Sora reportedly burned ~$15M/day) — we corrected the entry rather than leave a stale lead.
• The writing-tool changes are verified elsewhere on this site (Writesonic $79/mo entry, Jasper $69/seat no free plan); the QuillBot and Kaiber/WellSaid/Resemble items remain unconfirmed scan leads, labeled as such — QuillBot's pricing page did not resolve on our check.
• We publish this as a dated digest and correct entries when a primary read contradicts the scan; where we can't confirm, we say 'unconfirmed lead' rather than assert.

How we checked this

• Primary-verified and scan-flagged changes are labeled separately — and when a re-check contradicts the scan (as with Sora), we correct the entry rather than preserve the original lead.
• This digest links each change to the fuller explainer on this site where one exists; where it doesn't, it points at the vendor.

Murf: six plans became four (verified)

The one change we re-read on the live page this month. Murf consolidated its lineup to Free, Creator, Business and Enterprise — dropping a $49/mo Creator Plus tier and collapsing two Business tiers into one. The top self-serve price fell to Business at $66/mo annual (from a ~$199 tier); Creator held at $19/mo annual for 24 hours a year.

If you're pricing from a 2025-era Murf review, it's now describing plans that don't exist — the same staleness trap that makes these digests worth keeping. The practical takeaway: the cheapest commercial Murf is still Creator at $19/mo annual (or $29 month-to-month), and the step up is now Business at $66/$99, with nothing in between. Full detail and the hours-per-year math are in the Murf pricing breakdown.

Video generation got sharply cheaper — and Sora exited

The clearest verified move this cycle: Google's new Veo 3.1 Lite dropped 720p generation to $0.05 per second — about 67% below the $0.15/sec Fast tier and roughly eight times cheaper than the ~$0.40/sec earlier standard. And the change our scan first flagged as a 'Sora price decrease' was actually a shutdown: OpenAI announced it was ending Sora in late March 2026.

Generative video is where price pressure is sharpest, and July's data shows two forces at once. On one side, aggressive price cuts: Veo 3.1 Lite at $0.05/sec (720p) is a genuine step-change, confirmed across multiple independent reports — cheap enough to change what's economical to generate at scale. On the other, consolidation: OpenAI pulled Sora entirely (reportedly burning ~$15M/day), so any 2025-era comparison that still prices Sora is pricing a dead product.

This is also a worked example of why we label confidence. Our monthly scan surfaced 'Sora — price decrease'; on re-check that was flat wrong, because Sora no longer exists. We corrected the entry rather than publish the lead. The takeaway for buyers: verified as of this cycle, budget your video generation against Veo's new lower per-second rates, and drop Sora from your shortlist. Kaiber's flagged change remains an unconfirmed lead — check its page before relying on it.

Budget writing tiers keep vanishing (verified)

On the writing side, the pattern we've documented all year continued: cheap individual plans keep disappearing into higher-priced 'AI platform' bundles. This cycle we can point to primary-verified moves — Writesonic's entry is now $79/mo and Jasper is $69/seat with no free plan — while a flagged QuillBot change stays an unconfirmed lead.

The verified facts: Writesonic repositioned into a GEO platform with a $79/mo entry, its budget writing tiers gone; Jasper is $69/seat ($59 annual) with no free plan; and earlier Copy.ai retired its free plan and Frase dropped its $19.99 solo plan. The pattern for buyers is clear — the cheap individual writing plan is a vanishing species, so lock in a legacy plan if you have one and re-check the ladder before assuming last year's price.

The QuillBot plan change our scan flagged we could not confirm — its pricing page didn't resolve on our check — so we leave it as an unconfirmed lead rather than assert it. For the fuller field of what's still affordable, see the best AI writing tools in 2026.

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